There Will Be A New Girl In Town
by Starman3569
Summary: Jack got Tess. All was well until Alison had to go hire a new employee... and when she did, oh boy!
1. Chapter 1

Notes: This is a little idea I had about Eureka. Please let me know if it's worth continuing (or if it's been done before, I didn't see it, but I might have missed it) through reviews.

Characters owned by someone else. Not me. I don't think there will be any additions of my own in this storyline.

Eureka could be trouble. It was trouble for Jack Carter most of the time. Crazy stuff happened in this little corner of Oregon, stuff that no one wanted to know. Despite Eva Thorne's chart showing that the crazy meter went off the charts when former Marshal Carter took over as the town's chief law enforcement officer, the people liked Jack. And he liked them. The town gave his kid a chance to straighten up and fly right, and she did, straight to Harvard.

Things even went right for the beloved Sheriff. Of course, it took a kneeling in the middle of an international concourse in Portland for it to happen. Dr. Tess Carter kept her job as head of Section 5, while Alison Blake came back to work as the main boss. Despite some misgivings about a marriage between two of her higher-ranking employees, Alison bit her tongue and proceeded to deal with the personally painful situation. There were no more looks between Alison and Jack, no more stolen glances, no more runs for coffee at Café Diem. Just business. Alison's plate was full keeping up with GD, Kevin, and Jenna.

One day, Alison got an email from one of General Mansfield's aides. The note was pretty innocent on its face. Eureka needed a shrink. Since the Beverly Barlow debacle, the town really went unserved as far as mental health was concerned. In an enclave of scientists and folks that tended to have more psychological issues than the general population, a psychiatrist needed to be on staff. The note gave her a month to interview candidates. And the aide was kind enough to attach a list of CV and contact information for some people who were prequalified to work in a classified DOD environment.

Alison pressed the button on her desk that activated the polarizing glass surrounding her office when she looked at the first page of candidates. She smiled, laughed, and wondered how her first choice would go over.

The name Dr. Abigail Carter was third on the list. Yes, this was one hiring process that would provide lots of fun and frivolity for the stressed head of Global Dynamics.


	2. Chapter 2

Notes: This is a little idea I had about Eureka. I appreciate the reviews I've gotten so far! Thanks!

Standard disclaimer stuff: characters owned by someone else. Not me. I don't think there will be any additions of my own in this storyline.

Abby didn't get to come to town for a couple weeks after Alison made the phone call. It took that long for her to make arrangements for her patients. The interview process would take three days thanks to DOD requirements and some further clearance checks.

Dr. Carter's first impression of the phone call was shock. She hadn't told Jack or Zoe that she submitted a blind inquiry into jobs with DOD on the west coast, hoping that something would come up and she could be closer to her daughter. Even though Zoe moved 3,000 miles away to Harvard, the opportunity to move up intrigued Abby. And the military kept everything, including her paperwork, which put her in the running.

As a psychiatrist, Abby also had a medical degree. That was one reason she stayed in the running for a job in the small town. When a disaster hit, all hands on deck could include her working in the infirmary. Abby also had some advantages the other 20 or so applicants didn't have – she knew that Eureka was no normal town and had even been witness to the weather altering machine when she was in town to collect her daughter. And she also saw large parts of the Global Dynamics office when she came to be with Zoe after Jack put on the therapy device.

Alison maintained her straight face everything she talked to Jack or Tess. Jack didn't make a whole lot of trips out to the office and Tess had a certain amount of autonomy over Section 5.

The secret wasn't safe for long though. Abby showed up on a Wednesday morning in town. Alison had already made arrangements for her to stay at the bed and breakfast. The Wednesday session at GD wouldn't amount to more than a general hello. A couple of Army officers came to the meet-and-greet to get a feel for who Dr. Carter really was. On the way out though, Abby walked by Tess in the rotunda. Tess played it cool, but she recognized Abby from a picture Jack had showed her to compare Zoe to her mom.

Everyone at Global knew how to get information when they needed it. Especially gossip. The snitch just happened to be the utility player of all utility players.

"Fargo," Tess said as she walked into the broom closet Fargo called an office. Martha was floating in the room. "We need to talk."

"I can't talk right now, Dr. Carter. Really, I gotta go, I'm doing something important for Dr. Blake!"

"You're going to talk to me first or I swear, I will post a certain video of you, a girl, a disco ball, and bad 70's porn music all over the Global intranet if you don't stay here and chat for a minute."

"There is no recording of that!"

"Fargo, do you want to test me and find out?"

Fargo let out one of his standard "I'm so defeated" sighs and sat back down. "What do you want to know?"

"I just saw a woman being escorted out of the building after coming from Alison's office. Who was she and why was she here?"

"That's who I'm working on. It's Sheriff Carter's ex-wife."

"What the hell was she doing here talking to Alison? And why didn't Jack tell me she was in town?"

"Because he doesn't know. Dr. Blake swore me to secrecy. She's here because she's interviewing for the head shrink's job."

"You are joking, right?"

"Do you think I'm going to lie if you're threatening me?"

"Good point. Do I have to worry about her getting the job?"

"Dr. Blake has gone through the first two days with two other psychiatrists. They didn't make it to the third. And there are no more interviews scheduled. General Mansfield's goon squad is on her to make a choice and they aren't giving her a lot more time."

"If Alison is looking for me, tell her I left early. And if you utter a word about me knowing, the video goes up. Got it?"

Tess left without waiting for Fargo to stutter through an answer. She headed out of the building, jumped in her Audi, and headed for the bunker.

"Sarah, beer me," Tess said as soon as she walked into the kitchen. "And you might have to keep 'em coming."

"Dr. Carter, your blood pressure is elevated and you are showing signs of stress. Should I call the Sheriff and tell him you are sick?" the house said.

"No, he'll be home soon enough. What food makes Jack calm down… what should you make him when he's going to be slapped across the face with some hideous news?"

"He loves pork rinds and beer. But that is not a meal. I would suggest a steak with all the trimmings. Shall I call Café Diem and have it sent here?"

"Yeah, that's a good idea. Do you have a good supply of that chocolate sugar mess he calls a cereal?"

"I have four fresh boxes, Dr. Carter."

"How's the beer supply?"

"16.22 gallons remain in the keg currently in the refrigerator. Will the Sheriff be taking a sick day? Beer and cereal are his favorite comfort foods when he stays home?"

"That may be in the cards, Sarah. Any idea when he'll be home?"

"35 minutes. Vincent said that your dinner will arrive moments before he returns home for the evening."

"Thanks, Sarah," Tess said. She drank half her beer in one tip of the glass. "When I tell him the bad news, he'll probably ask for you to shot him instead of beer him. Do you have liquor?"

"I have eight different kinds and can dispense them at the desired temperatures through the refrigerator."

"You're the best house ever. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise."


	3. Chapter 3

Notes: This is a little idea I had about Eureka. I appreciate the reviews I've gotten so far! Thanks! And this is a Season 1-3 timeline story.

Standard disclaimer stuff: characters owned by someone else. Not me. I don't think there will be any additions of my own in this storyline.

Jack came home right on schedule. Turned out that the day in Eureka law enforcement involved not much aside from office work. Tess did her usual, meeting him in the living room and kissing him. The cop in Jack immediately detected hesitance.

"Bad day today?" Jack asked.

"I've had better. You didn't make it out to GD today, did you?"

"I'm thrilled to say I haven't been there all week, thank you very much. Should I have come up?"

"Uh, no."

"You realize you just said 'oh hell yeah, you should have an office at GD', you know that, right?"

"One beer, coming up," Sarah said. Tess grabbed it from the refrigerator door and handed it to Jack, who had taken a seat in the living room.

"What happened at GD today, Tess? Is this some secret Section 5 thing that you need to tell me but you can't?" Jack went from his usual good mood after an uneventful day to cringing about some disaster lurking on the horizon.

"Oh, no, no. How familiar are you with Eureka's mental health facilities?"

"Enough to know that the psychiatrist was a spy for some D.C. suit and no one knows where she is now. Remember Nathan Stark?"

"Of course I do."

"He had her put in some deep, deep hole. If she's back, I have to know. That woman is trouble, and not necessarily the GD kind of trouble. Real trouble."

"I talked to Fargo after I saw someone come out of Alison's office and head out of the building. She's interviewing replacements."

"Why is that a problem? Anyone who can help keep the psychos in this town under control is my partner."

"Yeah," Tess said, "partner isn't exactly the word I'd use. But you could say you were partners with one… with the leading candidate actually. Quite a while ago."

"I never had a shrink as a partner anytime in my career."

"Yeah, you did. You didn't catch fugitives though. You made a daughter."

"Abby is in town… interviewing for that job? How the hell did you find that out?"

"Zoe showed me her picture. Multiple doctorates, I have a pretty good memory. I saw her, then I threatened Fargo to spill his guts."

"Oh, so standard GD operating procedure. Good to know some things haven't changed out there. Why now though, she's got no reason to come here. Zoe's not coming back, she loves Harvard way too much."

"I did a little checking and didn't get too far. Abby was on a list of candidates. Jack, you haven't told me everything about her. Maybe now's the time to figure this out. Zoe told me she came to town once."

"That's been a long time ago. It was after Zoe's first year here. Abby and I had a deal that Zoe would go back to Los Angeles and I didn't want to let go."

"What exactly does she do now?"

"Private practice in L.A. Can't be for the government money."

"Did she do research?"

"Early, she did some. She always wanted to have the office and the couch. That's no reason to come here."

"She told you about psychiatric projects?"

"Statistics. Remember, it's the only math real people need. I didn't have to understand it to recognize it."

"Then why?"

"If I knew that, I'd be getting her out of town." Jack downed the beer and cocked his arm back to throw the glass. Tess's hand on his forearm stopped the shot.

"Talk."

"If Zoe was still here, I'd say fine, come on up. She's not and she won't be for years, if at all. There's no reason for Abby to come here now. This is my home now, not hers. It's just like her to sneak in and sneak out and keep under my radar."

Tess paused for a second. She thought quickly about telling Jack the fact she knew from her own medical interview – the process for any medical doctor, including psychiatrist, was three days, not just one.

"Why don't you call her and ask? That way you can hear it from her. Maybe there's a good reason she's here."

"Not tonight," Jack said. "I'm too pissed off to see straight right now."

"What do you have to do tomorrow?"

"I want to stay home, but I have to go out with Ranger Tom. It's the Sheriff's yearly forestry update. I'll be out in the woods being eaten alive by bugs all day. Jo's in charge."

"Why don't you put it off and stay home?"

"Because I already put it off for a week, hoping the weather would cool off and get a little less humid. The mosquitos settle down some then, but no such luck and tomorrow's the last day I can do it."

Tess remembered her medical interview. She knew she qualified as a GD doctor during the second day. Day three wasn't so much an interview as it was for filling out paperwork. If Abby made the grade, she would know on Thursday. Fargo's information, that time was short and a hire had to be made, told her that Abby had already passed the test and the process was a formality, barring any DOD issues.

Jack spent Thursday in the woods while Jo was officially Acting Sheriff in his absence. Tess forgot one detail in the hiring process, which for her happened in Café Diem under rather tense circumstances. All new personnel had to be introduced to the Sheriff. Most of the time, the meeting was a formality, with a nod and a "hello, welcome to town" followed by running off to fix the latest disaster. Tess's hiring was an emergency because of the Columbus' approach and her admittance to practice medicine was a distant afterthought, which only happened after she was officially (and really) made head of Section 5.

The procedure didn't escape Alison. She knew Jack wouldn't be in the office, so Jo would sign off on the Sheriff's paperwork. At 3:40 in the afternoon, Jo got an email from Alison, which was directed to all GD section heads, the Mayor, and the Sheriff, concerning the new Chief of Mental Health. For half an hour, she sat at her desk with her phone in hand, wondering whether to call her boss and tell him what was about to hit town. Finally, she hit the button and made the call.

"Jo," Carter said, "tell me something bad has happened! Save me from being devoured."

"Yeah, something's happened. You might want to quit cursing nature and come to town."

"What's wrong? Explosion, fire, bug attack?"

"Alison just sent an email to everyone. Your ex-wife is coming to work here."

"I heard she was here, Tess saw her at the office yesterday. Can you handle it?"

"Are you sure?"

"I don't want to spend another night in my own cell."

"Carter, I'm sorry."

"Not your fault. We're 20 minutes from our cars. When does she come to the office for your signature?"

"5:00. Are you coming?"

"I'll deal with this in private. After they're gone, call me and tell me where her house is. She won't be running the bed and breakfast like Beverly did."

"That's in the email. She'll be seeing patients at GD and at a new office in town. And she's getting assistants."

"What?" Jack screamed. "She's becoming a department?"

"Apparently so. Two psychiatrists under her and four research assistants. Carter, it sounds like she's not coming here to be the town shrink."

"I can't even get you a decent pay raise and my ex-wife comes in and builds her own little domain. Any mention of me in there?"

"No, aside from a few customizations, it's the standard new hire form letter."

"Thanks, Jo."

Jack called the forestry survey complete, which it basically was anyway, and headed back to the smart house. Tess hadn't made it home yet, so he showered, applied bug bite spray, and cleaned up. At 5:10, Jo called with the address, which didn't surprise Jack in the least – the house was next to Alison's. Abby had not started moving into the house, so Jack let it go for the night and went home.

Friday brought a much cooler day in Eureka, much to Jack's dismay of being in the forest in 90 degree heat being told about things he didn't want to know on a normal day. Jo brought Vinspressos for the morning caffeine jolt, and aside from a disturbance at Tesla High that Jo handled, calm ensued for most of the day. Jack was finishing a report when Henry popped into the office to find out what had happened.

"How's NASA?" Jack asked.

"Nothing better than a shuttle launch from inside the VIP area. I'm gonna miss those things."

"Listen, I got in late last night. When I checked my email, I found a note from Alison. Is she serious?"

"Apparently so."

"How is Tess taking it?"

"Better than me. She saw Abby here on Wednesday and told me about it."

"How about you?"

"We're about to find out," Jack said as he looked over Henry's shoulder. Abby was ready to start the confrontation.

"Call me if you need anything," Henry said as he left the office.

"Hello, Jack. Surprised to see me here?" Abby took the seat Henry vacated.

"Kinda. Come here to twist the knife a bit?"

"Excuse me?"

"Abby, this is home to me now. I thought we established that the last time you were here. We haven't had a town shrink in a couple years."

"You do now. It's a chance for me to get what I wanted early in my career."

"You wanted money, you made that pretty clear to me."

"I have money now. I'd like to do some good."

"So you applied for a long-empty job in a town in southeast Oregon where your ex-husband just happens to be the law?"

"That's not how it happened. I put in an application, so to speak, for jobs closer to here when Zoe was here. The DOD finally called."

"And so you're here. Wonderful."

"Jack, I'm not just here to be the town psychiatrist. I'll be doing research too."

"Don't research me."

"I thought we split on better terms than this. You were dying because of some thing you put on. You need to be a little less hostile."

"I'm finally putting everything behind me and now this comes up. I've tried for the last year, since I remarried by the way," Jack said as he showed his left hand, "to cut out my piece of the world. I don't have to take a back seat to my job or your job or your patients or anything else, and that's despite the fact that Tess is in charge of the most secret part of GD. I'm happy now. Don't screw that up for me." Jack grabbed his keys and headed out of the office.


End file.
